Saturday, June 25

New Baby

We have a new baby in the family... of the terrapin kind... a little red ear slider turtle. Her name is Mataio and she's the cutest thing ever. I'm fixed up her tank with nice river rocks and agates, a plant (fake cuz she eats them too fast), and some ledges to bask on. She never comes out to of the water to bask though... she only comes up for air then goes back under. I've made sure she can easily climb out on them, but nope, she won't. I'm going to get a turtle dock on Tuesday, and hopefully that will help. I wanted something more natural looking, so I used the stone ledges, but they don't seem to be enticing her to climb up on.
Any tips for getting her out of the water to bask?
I ordered a snazzy UVA/UVB light for her, which should be here any day now. In the mean time I've been using a 'daylight' in the hood. Maybe once the special bulb comes she'll be into basking more.
She's eating very well. I feed her floating turtle pellets (sticks) as her staple, and supplement her with veggies. I've trained her to come to me when I wiggle my finger in the water (that only took 2 weeks) and now I'm trying to get her to trust me to pop the food in her mouth, so I can hand feed her. She's pretty close. She stares at my fingers holding her food, but she won't take it from me quite yet.
My camera is at the studio, so I'll bring it home and post some pics of her soon.